


to make a king kneel

by Neffectual



Series: From An In-Ring Perspective [9]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Ableism, Angst, Happy Ending, Loneliness, M/M, Self-Hatred, Seth hates being injured, feels his body betrayed him, pushing yourself too hard as a form of self harm, the mark remark references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 15:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5339777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seth is out, injured, and he can't afford to just lie back, not now they've taken his title away. He wants to be better. He'll do anything to be better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to make a king kneel

**Author's Note:**

> Contains Seth hating himself for being injured, ableist language surrounding that situation which Seth uses for himself, and overwork as a form of self harm. Based on personal experiences.

The minute they tell him what he’s done to his knee, that it’s not just a stinger, that he hasn’t just slipped something the trainer can put back in, he curls around himself in the fucking waiting room, wanting to pull his knees up to his chest, but he can’t. Fuck, can’t even cope the way he wants to, by pretending that if he can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. In a way, this is worse than the bulging disc surgery, because at least then he wasn’t important. No one relied on him, no one needed him to be there – and fuck, the title.

The title, the title, he’s going to be out for too long to be allowed to hold onto it, and once he’s back in his hotel room, he digs his nails into the leather and clings to it, like they’ll have to pry his fucking hands off it to get it back, to hand it to someone else, someone who hasn’t had to work for it like he has, and he feels the tears prickle at his eyes, but champions don’t cry. Not now, not ever, he is not going to break down over a stupid piece of shiny crap that doesn’t mean anything to anyone outside the industry, but is everything he’s ever wanted since he was a kid practicing somersaults on his trampoline outside. When Hunter comes to take the belt away, he’s calm, quiet, his eyes soft.

“I know what it feels like to lose the title, Seth.” He says, and Seth wants to scream, because this isn’t losing, this isn’t being beaten by anyone, this is his own body betraying him just like he betrayed everyone he ever gave a shit about for a shot at this fucking title, “But you have to be able to hand it over with good grace.”

Seth smiles and nods like Renee Young on a kick-off show, and trashes the room five minutes after Hunter’s left with his title, not even giving back his custom sideplates. Apparently it will have more impact on the show if they’re still there, and the crowds will show respect, so he’s left here in a hotel in the fucking UK wishing he was anywhere but here, wishing he was home. He doesn’t call his mom, though he knows he should, doesn’t call anyone, because he severed all ties with anyone in the company who might give a shit anyway. He doesn’t have anyone to go to, no one to share the empty hotel bed with him that night, no one to right the nightstand or laugh when he trips over his suitcase on the way to the bathroom and falls flat on his face, unable to hold his balance. No one to help, no one to hold him, no one to care.

When he’s been standing in front of crowds of people, holding the title, it’s been easy to make it feel like the boos are the minority, like it doesn’t matter if no one can stand him, because he’s got the universe behind him, and the power of the Authority at his back, and no one can stand against him, no matter how hard they try. It’s only now, with no title, no knee, and no friends, that he realises it’s been so lonely doing this all by himself, and that there’s no one here to tell him that not being able to wrestle does not make him worthless.

He throws on a t-shirt he thinks fans will find ironic when he goes to hang out with the rest of the guys for something for Xavier’s youtube channel, grins and laughs, and throws everything he has into winning the game, because he’s damned if he’s going to lose anything else publically right now. He doesn’t realise the video will catch him walking away – limping, hobbling – but Xavier pats him on the shoulder, and it feels enough like friendship, just for a moment, that he almost breaks down. He holds on at the last minute, because the New Day will change their allegiances on a dime, and he doesn’t need anyone else to worry about. Bad enough that he ever showed emotion when he was part of the Shield, that he ever called them brothers; he won’t make that mistake again. When you want to be the best, there are no friends, there are no partners, and if that means there’s no one there when you hit rock bottom, then that’s just how it goes.

 

When he’s home, it’s straight to knee surgery, wheeled in under cameras with one leg shaved, like no one would help him even up by doing the other one – because no one would – and he hates it, the whole thing, the scrutiny, the pressure to smile and put up a front when he’s about to go under and have his knee fucked around with. It’s bullshit, and the worst part is when he’s groggy and recovering and people are shoving cameras in his face. He hasn’t even seen his knee yet, and he’s being asked questions, and he just wants to scream and make them all fuck off. But the contract says he has to be available, whatever that means, and so he smiles, and acts like it doesn’t bother him, and hates himself for doing it.

Of course, once he’s home, he’s achingly lonely, just wants someone to be with him, and he looks at his phone, desperate to find something to do that isn’t endless levels of candy crush or staring at twitter and watching teenage girls try to flirt with him through the medium of his injury. There have been some really nice messages, actually, some art and some serious well wishes, and it helps him feel a little bit less alone to know that he’s not been forgotten yet. But he also knows that the average wrestling fan has a memory of about a month, tops, and that he’s going to be out for a lot longer than that. He doesn’t expect them to stay saying nice things when his title gets passed on, not for a moment, because something more interesting will always come along.

He walks too early, ignoring the crutches as he staggers to the bathroom, because there’s no one there to tell him not to, and he hates the way they make him feel, like he’s a cripple, like he’ll never be better than this, like this is what he deserves for the way he won the title. He walks, hissing through the pain, and when he’s finished in the bathroom, just stands in the doorway and stares at the bed. He doesn’t want to get back in it. That would be like admitting failure – but his knee is buckling beneath him, and he sits before he falls, because that would be embarrassing, even with no one there to watch him. His pain pills are on the nightstand, with a glass of stale water from the night before, but he chugs it gratefully, washing the pills down, and settles back into the pillows.

The pills make him groggy, and half-awake, and make his stomach curl in on itself, so he doesn’t bother with food, just lies there with his phone and reads twitter, over and over, watching the wrestling world carry on without him. He liked to think he was a bigger player than this, but aside from everyone talking about how Hunter’s making it sound like he’s dead, not just injured, everyone seems more excited as to who will hold the title next, than they are about the guy it came off. He supposes that’s always the way, but it’s galling to realise the same people who cheered and booed him like he mattered don’t give a shit the minute he’s off-screen.

 

He’s only out two weeks before they give him clearance to be back in physio, rehab, training, moving his knee to keep the flexibility in the tendons, and he leaps at the chance to do something, anything other than sitting in bed and hating himself. He must have watched the video where his knee gives out a thousand times, trying to see where he fucked up, where the error was, why he got it wrong when he’s done it so many times before. He can’t find it, can’t find how to stop this ever happening again, and it makes him so frustrated that he’s pretty sure he’s punched his pillows more than he has anyone in the ring. He doesn’t hit the walls, not yet, because they’re still checking up on him, Hunter and Steph coming over in the jet every so often, and he has to smile, and talk about rebuilding, and all he wants to do is scream at them to give his title back, to take it all back, to make this never have happened. But not even they have that power.

Giving him license to use the gym as long as he’s careful is one of the most stupid things the trainers have ever given him, because he’s back in, day and night, every hour he can’t sleep, back to where he wants to be, pushing himself. Sometimes his knee pops, or cracks, and he thinks for one horrible moment that he’s going to tear the tendons again, but it holds, and he just swallows another pain pill, dry, and goes back to his work out. When he physically can’t anymore, he scours the internet for inspirational quotes not attributed to John Cena, and prints them out, sticking them carefully to his mirror so he can see them when he gets dressed. He calls it motivational, and Hunter seems to think it’s a brilliant idea, smiling at him as he gets up and pulls his support bandages on, the clap on the shoulder meaning nothing as Hunter walks away, because it doesn’t erase the weight he should have there, and doesn’t.

It’s late one night and he’s just thinking of heading down to the gym again when his phone buzzes, and he checks it on instinct, a number he doesn’t recognise flashing up with a text. No, that’s not quite true -  a number he doesn’t want to recognise. He wants to pretend he doesn’t have Dean’s number memorised, that he could have forgotten it as well as deleting it, but it’s not true. Dean wishes him a speedy recovery, like he doesn’t already know how long Seth’s going to be out for, and says Roman wishes him well, too.

And that’s all it takes. For the first time since they told him exactly what he’d done to his knee, he cries, curled around a pillow and half-sobbing, half-screaming, phone clutched in his hand so hard that he thinks he might hear the screen crack, but his boys, his boys. They still care, after what he did, they still want to know him, they still think he’s worth remembering with his knee in pieces. He doesn’t reply, can’t reply, not yet, but for the first night in a long time, he rolls over, exhausted, sleepy, and doesn’t think about how good a workout he can get tomorrow when his trainer’s gone, how he can push his limits and keep climbing, even when it hurts to much to even stand.

 

The texts keep coming, over days, weeks, months, even though he never replies, just tweets more positive thoughts and pictures of his surgery scars, messages to so many people but aimed at just two, two who have held him through so many long and painful nights, so many losses and wins. Sometimes Roman has the phone instead, they always use Dean’s, and he talks about the matches Seth’s been missing, how no one measures up to Seth, how he’ll be the one Seth has to beat to get his title, and he won’t hold back. Mostly it’s Dean telling him weird news, or titbits of gossip, or sending pictures of their hands, in that Shield position for the fist bump, and an empty space where Seth’s hand should be.

On the day Dean sends that, Seth looks at his mirror, and all those quotes, all those words telling him to work harder, to try more, to put everything into it, and sees what a wall of hate it’s become, how everything there tells him that taking his time to heal isn’t good enough, and that he’s not trying hard enough to get back into shape. It’s not helpful, it’s not motivational, it’s just… stupid words. Dean’s been giving him a hell of a lot better advice, and he’s not even there, he’s kept most of Seth’s upper body strength working, kept him off his feet, suggested heat packs and other useful movements that might help, ways to keep him occupied when he’s bored. It’s like he never turned his back on anyone.

**Ice your knee**

**One of us’ll keep that belt warm for you, and we won’t give it up too easy when you come back, either**

**You’re gonna be champ for real this time, no help from mommy and daddy**

Eventually, it happens, and Seth can’t help himself, has to text back, has to answer something, has to let his boys know when he’ll be coming home.

_Cleared for strenuous activity._

**:p Bet you are**

_Next week. Tell Ro I want that title back._

**He says come and get it.**

Seth grins. Oh, he’ll get it, alright, he’ll get it. And if he’s lucky, the title won’t be the only thing decorating his body by the end of the night. His knee twinges, and he adjusts his kneepad and boot, shifting the pressure. He’s ready. He’s going to do this.

He’s going to get back everything that ever meant anything to him.


End file.
